Abraham Lincoln, Volume II eBook

Another thing, which did no harm at all, but was exceedingly
vexatious, was the constant suggestion of European
mediation. For a couple of years, at least, the
air was full of this sort of talk. Once, in spite
of abundant discouragement, the French emperor actually
committed the folly of making the proposal. It
came inopportunely on February 3, 1863, after the
defeat of Fredericksburg, like a carrion bird after
a battle. It was rejected very decisively, and
if Napoleon III. appreciated Mr. Seward’s dispatch,
he became aware that he had shown gross lack of discernment.
Yet he was not without some remarkable companions in
this incapacity to understand that which he was observing,
as if from aloft, with an air of superior wisdom.
One would think that the condition of feeling in the
United States which had induced Governor Hicks, in
the early stage of the rebellion, to suggest a reference
to Lord Lyons, as arbitrator, had long since gone
by. But it had not; and it is the surprising
truth that Horace Greeley had lately written to M.
Mercier, the French minister at Washington, suggesting
precisely the step which the emperor took; and there
were other less conspicuous citizens who manifested
a similar lack of spirit and intelligence.

All this, however, was really of no serious consequence.
Talk about mediation coming from American citizens
could do little actual injury, and from foreigners
it could do none. If the foreigners had only been
induced to offer it by reason of a friendly desire
to help the country in its hour of stress, the rejection
might even have been accompanied with sincere thanks.
Unfortunately, however, it never came in this guise;
but, on the contrary, it always involved the offensive
assumption that the North could never restore the
integrity of the Union by force. Northern failure
was established in advance, and was the unconcealed,
if not quite the avowed, basis of the whole transaction.
Now though mere unfriendliness, not overstepping the
requirements of international law, could inflict little
substantial hurt, yet there was something very discouraging
in the unanimity and positiveness with which all these
experienced European statesmen assumed the success
of the Confederacy as the absolutely sure outcome;
and in this time of extreme trial to discourage was
to injure. Furthermore, the undisguised pleasure
with which this prospect was contemplated was sorely
trying to men oppressed by the burdens of anxiety
and trouble which rested on the President and his
ministers. The man who had begun life as a frontiersman
had need of much moral courage to sustain him in the
face of the presagings, the condemnations, and the
hostility of nearly all the sage and well-trained
statesmen of Europe. In those days the United
States had not yet fully thrown off a certain thralldom
of awe before European opinion. Nevertheless,
at whatever cost in the coin of self-reliance, the
President and the secretary maintained the courage
of their opinions, and never swerved or hesitated
in the face of foreign antipathy or contempt.
The treatment inflicted upon them was only so much
added to the weight under which they had to stand
up.